WHAT IS WHITE TANTRA HEALING?

The development of White Tantra to Tantric Healing Yoga and White Tantra Healing

The other day I had a Seeker (a guest here) who sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing, and after a while noticed that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father.“I was able to be there, present for the pain,” he said, when the meditation session ended. “To just let it be what it was, without thinking it through.”“Acceptance is what it was,” he continued. “Just letting it be. Not trying to change anything.”

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s it, and that’s big.”

This exercise in focused awareness and mental catch-and-release of emotions has become perhaps the most popular new meditation technique of the past decade. Mindfulness meditation, as it is called, is rooted in the teachings of a fifth-century B.C. Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. It is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysts in private practice and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad.

For years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients’ thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of their despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients endure flash floods of emotion during the process — and ultimately alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach. “The interest in this has just taken off,” said Zindel Segal, a psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. “And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.”

At workshops and conferences across the country, students, counselors and all sorts of therapists throng lectures on mindfulness. The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.

Some proponents say Buddha’s arrival in psychotherapy signals a broader opening in the culture at large — a way to access deeper healing, a hidden path revealed.

Yet so far, the evidence that mindfulness meditation helps relieve psychiatric symptoms is thin, and in some cases, it may make people worse, some studies suggest. Many researchers now worry that the enthusiasm for Buddhist practice will run so far ahead of the science that this promising psychological tool could turn into another fad.

“I’m very open to the possibility that this approach could be effective, and it certainly should be studied,” said Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory. “What concerns me is the hype, the talk about changing the world, this allure of the guru that the field of psychotherapy has a tendency to cultivate.”

Buddhist meditation came to psychotherapy from mainstream academic medicine. In the 1970s, a graduate student in molecular biology, Jon Kabat-Zinn, intrigued by Buddhist ideas, adapted a version of its meditative practice that could be easily learned and studied. It was by design a secular version, extracted like a gemstone from the many-layered foundation of Buddhist teaching, which has sprouted a wide variety of sects and spiritual practices and attracted 350 million adherents worldwide.

In transcendental meditation and other types of meditation, practitioners seek to transcend or “lose” themselves. The goal of mindfulness meditation was different, to foster an awareness of every sensation as it unfolds in the moment.

Dr. Kabat-Zinn taught the practice to people suffering from chronic pain at the University of Massachusetts medical school. In the 1980s he published a series of studies demonstrating that two-hour courses, given once a week for eight weeks, reduced chronic pain more effectively than treatment as usual.

Word spread, discreetly at first. “I think that back then, other researchers had to be very careful when they talked about this, because they didn’t want to be seen as New Age weirdos,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn, now a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts, said in an interview. “So they didn’t call it mindfulness or meditation. “After a while, we put enough studies out there that people became more comfortable with it.”

One person who noticed early on was Marsha Linehan, a psychololgy professor at the University of Washington who was trying to treat deeply troubled patients with histories of suicidal behavior. “Trying to treat these patients with some change-based behavior therapy just made them worse, not better,” Dr. Linehan said in an interview. “With the really hard stuff, you need something else, something that allows people to tolerate these very strong emotions.”

In the 1990s, Dr. Linehan published a series of studies finding that a therapy that incorporated Zen Buddhist mindfulness, “radical acceptance,” practiced by therapist and patient significantly cut the risk of hospitalization and suicide attempts in the high-risk patients.

Finally, in 2000, a group of researchers including Dr. Segal in Toronto, J. Mark G. Williams at the University of Wales and John D. Teasdale at the Medical Research Council in England published a study that found that eight weekly sessions of mindfulness halved the rate of relapse in people with three or more episodes of depression.

With Dr. Kabat-Zinn, they wrote a popular book, “The Mindful Way Through Depression.” Psychotherapists’ curiosity about mindfulness, once tentative, turned into “this feeding frenzy, of sorts, that we have going on now,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn said.

Mindfulness meditation is easy to describe. Sit in a comfortable position, eyes closed, preferably with the back upright and unsupported. Relax and take note of body sensations, sounds and moods. Notice them without judgment. Let the mind settle into the rhythm of breathing. If it wanders (and it will), gently redirect attention to the breath. Stay with it for at least 10 minutes.
After mastering control of attention, some therapists say, a person can turn, mentally, to face a threatening or troubling thought — about, say, a strained relationship with a parent — and learn simply to endure the anger or sadness and let it pass, without lapsing into rumination or trying to change the feeling, a move that often backfires.

One woman, a doctor who had been in therapy for years to manage bouts of disabling anxiety, recently began seeing Gaea Logan, a therapist in Austin, Tex., who incorporates mindfulness meditation into her practice. This patient had plenty to worry about, including a mentally ill child, a divorce and what she described as a “harsh internal voice,” Ms. Logan said.

After practicing mindfulness meditation, she continued to feel anxious at times but told Ms. Logan, “I can stop and observe my feelings and thoughts and have compassion for myself.”

Steven Hayes, a psychologist at the University of Nevada at Reno, has developed a talk therapy called Acceptance Commitment Therapy, or ACT, based on a similar, Buddha-like effort to move beyond language to change fundamental psychological processes.

“It’s a shift from having our mental health defined by the content of our thoughts,” Dr. Hayes said, “to having it defined by our relationship to that content — and changing that relationship by sitting with, noticing and becoming disentangled from our definition of ourselves.”

For all these hopeful signs, the science behind mindfulness is in its infancy. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which researches health practices, last year published a comprehensive review of meditation studies, including T.M., Zen and mindfulness practice, for a wide variety of physical and mental problems. The study found that over all, the research was too sketchy to draw conclusions.

A recent review by Canadian researchers, focusing specifically on mindfulness meditation, concluded that it did “not have a reliable effect on depression and anxiety.”

Therapists who incorporate mindfulness practices do not agree when the meditation is most useful, either. Some say Buddhist meditation is most useful for patients with moderate emotional problems. Others, like Dr. Linehan, insist that patients in severe mental distress are the best candidates for mindfulness.

A case in point is mindfulness-based therapy to prevent a relapse into depression. The treatment significantly reduced the risk of relapse in people who have had three or more episodes of depression. But it may have had the opposite effect on people who had one or two previous episodes, two studies suggest.

The mindfulness treatment “may be contraindicated for this group of patients,” S. Helen Ma and Dr. Teasdale of the Medical Research Council concluded in a 2004 study of the therapy.

Since mindfulness meditation may have different effects on different mental struggles, the challenge for its proponents will be to specify where it is most effective — and soon, given how popular the practice is becoming.

The question, said Linda Barnes, an associate professor of family medicine and pediatrics at the Boston College School of Medicine, is not whether mindfulness meditation will become a sophisticated therapeutic technique or lapse into self-help cliché.

“The answer to that question is yes to both,” Dr. Barnes said.
The real issue, most researchers agree, is whether the science will keep pace and help people distinguish the mindful variety from the mindless.

A variety of meditative practices have been studied by Western researchers for their effects on mental and physical health.

Tai Chi

An active exercise, sometimes called moving meditation, involving extremely slow, continuous movement and extreme concentration. The movements are to balance the vital energy of the body but have no religious significance.

Studies are mixed, some finding it can reduce blood pressure in patients, and others finding no effect. There is some evidence that it can help elderly people improve balance.

Transcendental Meditation

Meditators sit comfortably, eyes closed, and breathe naturally. They repeat and concentrate on the mantra, a word or sound chosen by the instructor to achieve state of deep, transcendent absorption. Practitioners “lose” themselves, untouched by day-to-day concerns. Studies suggest it can reduce blood pressure in some patients.

Mindfulness Meditation

Practitioners find a comfortable position, close the eyes and focus first on breathing, passively observing it. If a stray thought or emotion enters the mind, they allow it to pass and return attention to the breath. The aim is to achieve focused awareness on what is happening moment to moment.

Studies find that it can help manage chronic pain. The findings are mixed on substance abuse. Two trials suggest that it can cut the rate of relapse in people who have had three or more bouts of depression.

Yoga

Enhanced awareness through breathing techniques and specific postures. Schools vary widely, aiming to achieve total absorption in the present and a release from ordinary thoughts. Studies are mixed, but evidence shows it can reduce stress.

Though today, Yoga is mainly associated with the practice of physical postures and a few basic breathing techniques, there is more depth to this powerful discipline than has existed for more than two thousand years. It may seem trivial if so much importance were given to Yoga, over such a long period of time, if all it was, was a bunch of postures, that addressed only the physical needs of an individual.

On the contrary, Tantric Healing Yoga is a holistic healing discipline that addresses the needs of the whole person through continuous adaptation of its many tools to suit the student’s unique and changing needs. This is why, with the compassionate guidance of a skilled teacher, Tantric Healing Yoga is as appropriate for the young as it is for the old, as appropriate for the stroke victim lying immobile in a hospital bed, as it is for the flexible, athletic dancer. This is why it may be said that Tantric Healing Yoga is for everyone. It offers a wide range of tools which include physical practices, special breathing techniques, powerful meditative practices, symbolic gestures and use of vocal sounds, guided self inquiry practices and more.

When appropriately administered, Tantric Healing Yoga practices may be used in a wide variety of purposes such as

* in promoting and maintaining physical and mental health
* in serving as a complimentary system of holistic health care – both preventative, and curative
* in relieving stress and promoting efficiency
* in aiding to face and deal with challenging life situations
* in providing and guiding us in spiritual transformation

The aim of Tantric Healing Yoga is to promote health and facilitate healing in a holistic manner, by allowing the healer to design and teach appropriate and unique practices that empower the students in their recovery.

A Holistic Process

Tantric Healing Yoga does not look at our individual system as one that is made up of parts. Rather it looks at our human being as one holistic entity that is made up different dimensions (physical body, breath, mental, personality traits, and emotions) that are mutually dependent on and mutually influence one another. It propounds that an illness at the body level, need not exist because of a cause in the body level, but could also manifest because of a problem in another dimension of the body.

For example, it is now proven that one possible factor that could contribute to heart attacks could be stress. And one cause stress could come because of emotionally unstable relationships. Thus an emotional cause may manifest as a physical symptom. The contrary could also be true. So are innumerable other possibilities. Thus Tantric Healing Yoga Therapy teaches us that, in choosing and designing practices for healing, we must understand such dynamics in the student (patient), before coming up with a unique solution.

Understanding this situation, the ancient masters presented tools of Tantric Healing Yoga, which were able to influence multiple dimensions of our human system, rather than just one. Thus a practice administered at the body level, may not only have an impact on the body, but has the potency to impact the other dimensions as well. Similarly a deep meditative practice may not only influence our mind or emotions, but may also have an influence on our physical body. Thus a good Tantric Healing Yoga practice empowers the whole human system, rather than parts of it. This is the beauty of Tantric Healing Yoga, and hence its potency in healing. Thus a Tantric Healing Yoga Therapist needs to be competent in the wide range of Tantric Healing Yoga’s tools, rather than just a few of them.

Some of the common tools used in Tantric Healing Yoga therapy include:

· postures (asanas)

· special breathing techniques (pranayama)

· meditative practices (dhyanam)

· social attitudes (yama)

· guided self inquiry practices (svadhyaya)

· symbolic gestures (mudra)

· use of vocal sounds (mantra)

· dietary recommendations (ahara niyama)

· lifestyle changes (vihara niyama)

. Tantric Touch Healing/Massage (shaktipat)

This list is not comprehensive, but is indicative of what is possible in Tantric Healing Yoga therapy. Also, often these tools may not be taught in isolation, but may be grouped together to come up with an effective practice.

An Individual Process

To make healing effective and potent, we must understand and interact with patients individually, rather than prescribe practices in groups, though some exceptional situations may even allow that. When we interact with students privately we can understand their individual illnesses, their causes and what are the individual abilities of the student, which can help us design practices that will be the perfect fit for them. Can a doctor prescribe the same pill to patients irrespective of their complaint? Similarly a Tantric Healing Yoga therapist has to interact with the student privately to help heal them. Otherwise it will not be an effective process.

A Self Empowering Process

A powerful component of the healing process in Tantric Healing Yoga is that it empowers the student to heal themselves. Unlike in surgery, where a surgeon operates on a passive and often unconscious patient, or massage therapy, where the therapist works on a patient, in Tantric Healing Yoga the student has an active and often complete responsibility in the healing process. The Tantric Healing Yoga Therapist’s role is limited to one of understanding the student’s illness, and teaching appropriate practices that the student will have to do it themselves. An important job is also to review and verify the appropriateness of the practice.

Since much of the healing happens due to the regular practice by the student, a key responsibility of the Tantric Healing Yoga Therapist is to inspire and motivate them to maintain the practice. This is often the key to the success of a good healing process.

What I Offer here at White Tantra Healing …

Healing and Wellness

Tantric Healing Yoga offers developmental and therapeutic Tantric Healing Yoga programs that address the needs of the whole person according to the individual’s capability and interest and which specifically seek to empower each Seeker in their own healing and wellness processes.

Personalized Individual Tantric Healing Yoga programs

I offer one-on-one consultations and classes.

I design and monitor a course of practice that directly addresses the student’s specific needs, abilities, situation and therapeutic and/or wellness goals.

Initial Consultation:

First Session – 60 Minutes initial intake, consultation and program

Second Session – 60 Minutes – Follow Up

Subsequent Follow-Up Sessions:

60 Minutes to Two Hours (depending on each individual)

In preparation, please wear loose and comfortable clothing and we will provide anything you might need.

All sessions are held in my sacred space in my home near the Indian River in the Cocoa/Rockledge area of Florida.
EMAIL ME FOR MORE INFO: Kathryn@DakiniKathryn.Com

Tantra is a spiritual path for integrating body, mind and soul. It differs from other paths in its honoring of the body, using the senses, sensuality, and feelings to help you evolve spiritually.Tantra assists you in realizing your full potential as a human being. If you choose to live from the Tantric perspective, you will transform your life. You will discover bliss.You may apply Tantric practices and principles to many areas of life – to relationship and loving, spiritual practice and lifestyle, physical and emotional well-being.

The practices and rituals of Tantra, both spiritual and sensual, work to create the conditions necessary for love to flourish and endure. When we achieve states of presence, energy flow, relaxation, harmony, and connection, love emerges and opens the heart. To bring about the conditions that generate and sustain love, we can learn to rely upon Tantric practices to create more of these positive energy states. Tantra, therefore, is not just something to do in our bedrooms, but rather a complete way of life.As a Tantrika, I follow regular practices to quiet my mind, open my awareness to sensation, raise my energy vibration, and cultivate a sacred attitude towards myself, others, and events in my life. As part of my practice, each day I create a time to connect with my body and spirit. I use the Ipsalu Tantra method to attune to my inherent Bliss vibration: I awaken my body, still my mind, arouse my shakti energy, draw that lifeforce into my higher chakras, and enjoy a meditation where I connect with what is present and what I want to create in my life. By the end of my practice my body is buzzing with blissful vibration. I feel spacious, centered, grounded, and ready to bring my vibrant energy with me out into my day.Cultivating states of presence, energy flow, relaxation, harmony, and connection is not always easy. A lifetime of hurts and other negative experiences have gradually limited our ability to be present and to express the essence of who we really are, fully and freely. We slowly become cut off from our feelings and the ability to experience our sensual creative energy in a connected, joyful, loving way.

In a subtle, gentle, yet powerful way, Tantric loving brings healing. It breaks up and washes away residues of our past that hold us back from limitless love and intimacy. Tantra teaches us not only how to be great lovers, but how to be great healers for one another as well.

Tantra represents a unique paradigm for conscious living and loving. It offers a passionate and expansive way of life for those seeking to connect with their sensuality in a positive, heart-centered way, a way that celebrates freedom of spirit and body alike.

In principal, the Tantric Practitioner learns to focus and amplify life-force energy (“Chi” or “Prana”) by combining various breathing and body awareness exercises. When the practitioner holds a high vibrational field of life-force energy around an affected area, she or he facilitates healing through the process of resonance and entrainment.

Everything vibrates. When two things vibrate at different frequencies, there is a tendency for the vibrations to come together. Most often, the slower vibration will rise to match the faster frequency. There are many kinds of examples of entrainment: over time, similarly tuned electric oscillators will match frequencies; disembodied animal hearts when placed near each other and kept alive in a lab will all beat in unison; and when women share a dormitory, over months they will often start menstruating at the same time.

Tantric Healing uses resonance and entrainment to facilitate healing. The practitioner learns to raise his or her vibration and create a high level of energy. If that energy field is placed around an area of pain, stress, inflammation, or disease, that part of the body will entrain to the higher frequency and allow one’s own biological intelligence to do whatever healing it deems necessary.

Tantric Healing provides healing energy for the practitioner as well as for the person seeking healing. Using Tantric breathing techniques and body awareness exercises, the practitioner can hold an extraordinarily high vibration, influencing the person in need of healing to match the vibration of the practitioner. The practitioner will not become drained from doing the work. Most often, the practitioner feels emotionally uplifted as a result!

I show people that they can actually dramatically change the taste of wine by directing energy into it; we’re definitely affecting the very physics and chemistry of matter. I see that in the future, when research has been done, life force energy will be appreciated as being real … and powerfully impacting physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and psychology. Our world will forever be different as people realize that their love has impact and their love has value.

Healing is a fascinating process which is generally very poorly understood. While many people think they can heal other people, it is of utmost importance to realize that all healing is self-healing. I see myself as being simply a “catalyst” for self-healing. Cells desire to be well, and given the right energetic, emotional and nutritional environments, they will do just that. The body has an extraordinary intelligence and ability to heal itself. My favorite definition of a healer is someone who was sick and got well; a great healer is someone who was very sick and got well quickly.

Origins of Tantra

Tantra is a spiritual teaching and philosophy that originated in India well over 2000 years ago. It is still relevant today.

It originated in ancient Vedic times, in matriarchal cultures such as that of the Indus Valley, and in practices revolving around the worship of the Goddess.

The essence of Tantra has taken many forms of expression and appears in virtually every culture in history, e.g., Chinese Taoist Tantra, Native American Quodoshka.

Tantra is a timeless phenomenon as well as a global one. Even today in the West it satisfies many of our most essential needs: love, connection, intimacy, play, harmony and balance, inspiration, relaxation, celebration, physical and emotional well-being and spiritual fulfillment.

The Word Tantra

Tantra comes from the ancient Sanskrit words tanoti which means “to expand” and trayati which means “liberation.” This implies that you can be liberated by expanding your consciousness.

Another definition of the word Tantra is “web” or “to weave.” Tantra is an interweaving of the energies of many levels of consciousness from the mundane, to the most erotic, to the most profound.

Tantra is generally divided into two main streams: Red Tantra and White Tantra.

White Tantra or Tantra of the Right Hand (Dakshina Marga) involves the meditative techniques of Tantra and is essentially a celibate, ascetic path.

The interrelated notions of the Goddess, Kundalini, the Subtle Body, and the Chakra System are central to Tantra and its aims.

The Goddess

Tantra reveres The Goddess. The Divine Feminine.

In ancient times, The Goddess was worshiped as the embodiment of eroticism and the source of all creation. Every woman was seen as Shakti – The Goddess incarnate. Each woman is a Shakti. Shakti is the Hindu Goddess, or archetype, of the divine feminine.

Shakti also refers to a particular quality of energy that is feminine and rises upwards in the body, such as earth energy. It was worshipped in ancient India as the primal energy that created the cosmos. Shakti energy, is creative life-force energy.

Re-awakening the Goddess is central to modern Tantra. Although both the masculine and the feminine energies are equally important, the extra focus on the feminine is necessary in order to counterbalance the predominant masculine energy of our present culture. Daily life in this busy world does not encourage women or men to recognize or acknowledge the Goddess, but rekindling a woman’s energy brings forth her Goddess nature. Tantric practices allow the Goddess in every woman to emerge. Both the woman and her partner benefit. The free flow of a woman’s energy activates her shakti, creating an atmosphere for spiritual enlightenment. Her pleasure and desire for lovemaking will increase and may even surpass the pleasure potential and desire of the man.

In Tantra, I honor the Goddess. I enjoy teaching these techniques and initiating those new to Tantra into the art of honoring the divine feminine.

Kundalini

The main purpose of the tantric path is to activate Kundalini energy in the body. Those who achieve this awakening live in an ongoing state of bliss.

Kundalini is the most powerful and refined energetic force available to us as human beings.

The term means “she who is coiled” and is traditionally depicted as a serpent, coiled and sleeping at the base of the spine. When awakened, it begins to uncoil as it climbs up through the chakras to the crown. For thousands of years, the serpent has been used in many cultures to symbolize rising consciousness.

A minimal flow of Kundalini exists in everyone already. It is the energy that animates the body and the physical senses and provides a base level of consciousness. As the flow increases, we begin to access higher realms of consciousness into the spiritual dimensions.

Kundalini is activated by the energy of Shakti energy. Shakti is generated through conscious lovemaking or specific yogic techniques designed to activate this energy. The tantric path sees our energy as an important expression of Kundalini.

A full Kundalini awakening occurs only when a perfect balance of masculine and feminine exists in the body. Maintaining a balance between these energies is the essence of Tantric practice.

Like a cobra which has cast its coils
spiraling conch-like three-times-
and-a-half round Shiva, her mouth
laid on that other mouth
which leads to bliss,
the enchantress
of the world,
slender as a lotus stem,
bright as a lightning-flash,
lies sleeping,
breathing softly out and in,
murmuring poems
in sweetest meters,
humming like a drunken bee
in the petals of
the muladhara lotus,
how brightly her light shines

–Satcakra-nirupana TantraFor a more in-depth discussion of Kundalini and how it works, refer to the excellent chapter on the subject in Bodhi Avinasha’s The Ipsalu Formula: A Method for Tantra Bliss or Swami Satyananda Saraswati’s complete book Kundalini Tantra.The Subtle Body

Since Tantric practices directly influence the energy of the subtle body, a basic understanding of esoteric anatomy is useful.

The Western view of anatomy encompasses systems of the body that we can see: the skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, etc. Eastern medicine (i.e. Ayurveda, Chinese medicine) teaches that a subtle body also pervades our anatomy.

The most important aspect of the subtle body is the system of energy centers, known as chakras. The subtle body also contains several hundred thousand energy channels, called nadis. There are three principle subtle channels, the sushumna (central), the ida (left channel) and pingala (right channel). The subtle body is also called the energy body.

If you have ever done yoga or received acupuncture, you have already experienced the awakening of your subtle body.

As kundalini awakens, it rises up through the sushumna, moving through the main chakras of the subtle body. If there are energy blocks along this central energy “highway” the kundalini will not ascend through all of the chakras.

A heightened awareness of your energy body translates to intensified levels of sensation and pleasure. When your energy body is awake, even the slightest touch may arouse great bliss. I can teach you how to awaken the energy body of your beloved, inspiring in him or her unknown delights!

The Chakra System

The chakras are concentrated vortices of energy within the subtle body, centers of consciousness. They are way-stations along the upward path of the Kundalini. Our bodies actually have many chakras, both big (e.g. at the crown of the head) and small (e.g. at the pads of our fingers). “The chakras” refer to the seven main chakras “situated” along the axis of the spine. All the chakras have the potential to become powerful erogenous zones!

Although we cannot see or feel the chakras with our physical senses, they are evident in the shape of our physical bodies and in the way we think, feel, and handle life’s situations.

Sometimes these energy centers become clogged or blocked due to negative experiences, physical pain, emotional traumas, social programming, cultural conditioning, limiting belief systems, or adverse life conditions. Blocks result in an incomplete or unbalanced experience of life and limit the expression of our own true life force energy. If you have ever experienced a “knot in your throat,” for example, due to holding back tearful emotional expression, then you have experienced a block in the 5th chakra. This block acts as a limit, restricting the full expression of your inner world to the outer. Can you recall a time when you have experienced a “heavy heart,” a block in the 4th chakra? Grief, resulting from hurts to the heart, blocks the heart’s natural lightness and expansiveness; the heart becomes heavy and closed. A heavy heart prevents us from engaging in nourishing, loving relationships, and our life may feel incomplete as a result.

Awakening and opening all of our chakras allow us to express ourselves as unique, whole, and fully-realized individuals.

Tantric practice provides means to fully awaken and open the chakras, with particular emphasis on the second, fourth chakras and sixth chakras (sex, heart, and spirit), integral to our experience as expansive, joyful beings.

Ipsalu Tantra Kriya Yoga is a unique approach within the variety of Tantric paths. Faithful to ancient Tantra’s original purposes and researched techniques, it is an adapted system to meet the interests of people in the western world at the present evolutionary level. Ipsalu Tantra is a profound and playful way for learning to live in bliss. What distinguishes Ipsalu is the focus on realizing your true Self, attention to emotional flow, and the skillfully designed sets of yogic techniques for safely activating your kundalini (most powerful and creative) energy.

“Ipsalu” in Sanskrit means “transcending illusions of desire.” By freeing and integrating ego desires, you realize your bliss body. Frustration, separation, boredom and fear melt away for they are simply clouds over the magnificence that is present inside you. The union of sex, love and pure awareness within your body, with a beloved, in each moment, with everyone, with all of existence is indescribable joy. It is the essence of your nature.

What is the difference between “Tantric Touch”, “Quantum Touch” and “Reiki” Healing . . .

TANTRIC TOUCH

Tantric Touch (TT) is a type of healing energy whereby the therapist moves his or her hands over the patient’s “energy field,” allegedly directing the flow of chi or prana so the patient can heal. TT is based on the belief that each living thing has a “life energy field” which extends beyond the surface of the body and generates an aura. This energy field can become unbalanced, misaligned, obstructed, or out of tune. Energy healers manipulate this energy field by making movements that resemble massaging the air a few inches above the surface of the patient’s body. Energy healers also think that they can transfer some of their own life energy to the patient by actually touching or “laying on of hands” upon the patient. These manipulations allegedly restore the energy field to a state of balance or harmony, to a proper alignment, or they unblock a clog in the field or transfer life energy from healer to patient. This restoration of integrity to the field is thought to make it possible for the body to heal itself.

TT has no scientific basis but it does have a history, though TT is apparently being practiced worldwide by all kinds of “alternative” healers and laypersons in addition to a few Tibetan Tantric Medicine Buddha healers.

Practitioners admit that there has never been any scientific detection of a human energy field. This, they say, is because of the inadequacies of our present technology. One with a trained sense, however, is allegedly able to detect the human energy field and assess its integrity. Despite the obvious metaphysical basis for this, defenders of TT claim it is scientific because it is based on quantum physics. A grant proposal to study therapeutic touch on burn victims asserts: “Quantum theory states that all of reality is made up of energy fields and that over 99% of the universe is simply space.” Another defender claims that the underlying principles upon which this technique is based include acceptance of the Einstein paradigm of a complex, energetic field-like universe (i.e., the existence of a Life energy flowing through and around all of us). Further, if life is characterized by an interchange of various qualities of energy, it can be assumed that any form of obstruction — either within the organism or between the organism and the environment — is contrary to Nature’s tendencies and therefore unhealthy. In practicing Tantric Touch, one attempts to influence this energy imbalance towards health to restore the integrity of this field. In this way the TT practitioner does not so much “heal” the patient as facilitate the patient’s own healing processes, by gently manipulating the body’s energy flow and adjusting it as a whole. With the achievement of balance in mind, body and spirit, we have a truly holistic healing.

Why so many believers?

One might wonder why a group of otherwise intelligent, highly trained would be attracted to something like TT?

Those who practice Tantric Touch report reaping benefits for themselves. For example, the ability of TT to reduce burnout in health care professionals has been well-documented.

The Tantric Touch/Quantum Touch/Reiki therapist has powers physicians don’t have: secret, mystical powers which only the practitioner can measure. Tantra is passed down from teacher to pupil, who then becomes a teacher themself. You get a lot of positive feedback. You can’t hurt anyone because you are not invading their body with drugs or surgical instruments. You network and those in your network feed off of each other’s enthusiasm. There is a great deal of communal reinforcement. Many patients swear they can feel your good work.

Our minds release 1000 thoughts per wink of an eye. Some of these thoughts get lost in the unconscious, and some get stuck in the subconscious and affect the conscious mind. These thoughts become feelings, emotions, desires, multi-realities or fantasies. Instead of mastering our mind, often our mind and thoughts direct us, which can cause impulsive decisions, poor communication and self-imposed stress.

White Tantric Healing Yoga enables you to break through these subconscious blocks, so you can have a more enjoyable life. In the shortest time, you can experience release from a lot of the burden you carry in your mind.

When you see and act on each moment with clarity, you can gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your life can change. Your mind, body, and soul can act together as one. This is the path to personal freedom and awareness, and will bring more success to every area of your life.

Envision the energy of the universe as both parallel and perpendicular in nature, like a cloth woven together. As a cloth becomes stronger when it is stretched on the diagonal, so the White Tantric Healing Yoga diagonal, or ‘Z’ energy is stronger. This energy, when directed by the VajraYogini, cuts through the blocks that are stuck in the subconscious mind.

Using the diagonal energy, the Tantric VajraYogini connects her subtle body to the subtle bodies of the participants through the course facilitator. This works the same way as a worldwide telephone system that relies on satellites and electromagnetic energy in order to connect two parties.

White Tantric Healing Yoga should not be confused with black or red tantric. Those forms of yoga also transform energy, but in a different way and for different purposes. Black tantric directs the energy to manipulate another human being and red tantric directs the energy solely for sexual purposes.

White Tantric Healing Yoga is done in pairs as a group meditation. You sit facing the VajraYogini and follow her instructions.

Each Tantric Healing Yoga session consists of between six and eight kriyas. A kriya is a meditation incorporating:

Sometimes the kriyas are accompanied by music. These kriyas vary in length from thirty-one to sixty-two minutes. There are breaks between each kriya.

The environment is peaceful, and the atmosphere is friendly, supportive, and uplifting.

QUANTUM TOUCH

Reiki is enhanced by Quantum-Touch. Quantum-Touch has no attunements or symbols. Quantum-Touch is a natural and innate skill that can be learned with simple breathing and body awareness techniques. These techniques allow the Quantum-Touch practitioner to powerfully focus and amplify the life-force energy.

Practitioners of Quantum-Touch don’t become drained or tired from doing sessions. When I interviewed Reiki masters, about 40% reported that they had occasionally felt energy going up their arm, or had become tired and drained.

This is a function of the practitioner entraining or matching to the seeker’s vibration. Without a skill to hold a high vibration, Reiki practitioners may at times become drained.

I’ve taught Quantum-Touch to numerous chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists and osteopaths who have been astounded to observe rapid structural realignment, reduction of inflammation, and other benefits.

Reiki masters who have taken my workshops have nicknamed Quantum-Touch, “Reiki empowerment” or “turbo charging the Reiki.” I got a laugh when one of my students wrote in the review of my workshop that Quantum-Touch was “like Reiki on steroids.” Both systems use the same life-forced energy. The Quantum-Touch practitioner learns to focus the energy like a laser, which takes concentration, body awareness and breath.

I am a Reiki Master and have had success with Reiki, but have found Quantum Touch to be very powerful and show results much more quickly. I have worked on two women who can feel the energy as it flows through their bodies. Their response has been that Reiki comes from without and Quantum Touch comes from within. I can feel the energy field surrounding people and can say from direct experience that Quantum Touch (especially after the Supercharging workshop) expands the individuals energy field at least tenfold, which would help account for the breakthroughs in health.

CHAKRAS

Chakras are our energy centers. They are the openings for life energy to flow into and out of our aura. Their function is to vitalize the physical body and to bring about the development of our self-consciousness. They are associated with our physical, mental and emotional interactions. There are seven major chakras. The aura is often referred to as the eighth chakra. The first chakra (root) actually hangs outside of your body. It is located between your thighs, about halfway between your knees and your physical body. The seven chakra (crown) is located on the top of your head. The remaining chakras, (sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, and third eye), are aligned in sequence along your spine, neck, and skull. Individually, your chakras look similar to funnels with petal-like openings.

Chakras are invisible to the human eye, but they can be perceived intuitively by trained energyworkers.

Evaluating the Health of Your Chakras

Having your chakras evaluated by a trained practitioner is a good way to get a better understanding of how your body functions on an energetic level. An energyworker trained in reading chakras will be able to tell you which chakras are functioning poorly and which chakras are working overtime. When one or two chakras are performing at a reduced level, the remaining chakras have to pick up the slack. Having a non-functioning chakra can effectively “blow out” an otherwise healthy chakra. Not good.

Keeping Your Chakras in Proper Alignment

When your back or hip gets out of alignment you will make a trip to the chiropractor’s office for a spinal adjustment. Similarly, a healer trained in manipulating the energy flow of energy can assist you in getting misaligned chakras back to functioning properly. It may take one or more appointments with a practitioner to get your energy levels up to par. Afterwards, there are a variety of healthy actions you can take to help keep them open, allowing your energy to flow naturally.

REIKI

Reiki (pronounced Ray Key) is a combination of two Japanese words rei and ki meaning universal life energy. Reiki is an ancient laying-on of hands healing technique that uses the life force energy to heal, balancing the subtle energies within our bodies. Reiki addresses physical, emotional, mental and spiritual imbalances. This healing art is an effective delivery system. The Reiki practitioner serves as a vessel that supplies healing energies where they are most needed. Reiki’s ki-energies flow out of the practitioner’s body through the palms of the hands while they are touching the recipient’s body.

What to Expect During a Reiki Treatment

You will be asked to lay down on a massage table, couch, or bed.

You will be fully clothed except for your shoes. You may also be asked to remove or loosen your belt so that your breathing is not restricted in any way. It is best to choose loose-fitting garments to wear on the day of your appointment. Wearing natural fabrics is best (cotton, wool, or linen). You may also be asked to remove any jewelry (rings, braceletes, pendants, etc.) prior to the session, so consider leaving these items at home.

Relaxing Atmosphere

Reiki practitioners will often create a relaxing atmosphere for their Reiki sessions, setting the mood with the use of dimmed lights, meditative music, or bubbling water fountains. Some practitioners prefer to be in a place that is completely silent, without distraction of music of any kind, to conduct their Reiki sessions in.

Healing Touch

The Reiki practitioner will place his hands lightly on different parts of your body. Some practitioners will follow a predetermined sequence of hand placements, allowing their hands to rest on each body placement for 2 to 5 minutes before moving on to the next. Empathic practitioners will freely move their hands in no particular order to the areas where they “feel” Reiki is most needed. Some Reiki practitioners do not touch their seekers. They will hover their lifted palms a few inches above the reclined body. Either way, Reiki energies flow where they are suppose to. Reiki is a smart energy that automatically flows where the imbalances are in your body regardless of where the practitioner’s hands are placed.

Phantom Hands

Because Reiki energies flow to where they are most needed there is a Reiki phenomenon called “phantom hands” that you may or may not experience. Phantom hands feel as if the Reiki practitioner’s hands are touching one part of your body when they are actually elsewhere. For example, you may be able to see that the healer’s hands are actually placed on your stomach, but you could swear that hands are touching your legs. Or, you may feel as if several pairs of hands are on your body at the same time as if several people are in the room with you.

Becoming a Reiki Practitioner

Reiki is traditionally taught in three levels. Levels I and II are typically taught in one day class (8 hours) or over a weekend period (16 hours). Level III is generally a more intensive course of study and will take a longer commitment. Class time involves an initiation ritual called an attunement and learning the hand placements for self treatments as well as treating others.

Reiki Controversies and Myths

The healing community has come a long way in demystifying the cloak of secrecy that once surrounded the teaching of Reiki in the western hemisphere. As a result, inaccuracies that were born out of the teaching being hidden away have been chipped away layer by layer. However, some of these Reiki Myths continue to grow organically.

Reiki was first introduced to Canada and the United States in the 1970s. Hawayo Takata, a Hawaii native of Japanese descent, brought her knowledge of Reiki to the mainland through oral teachings. Reiki teachings and stories were passed down from teacher to student by word of mouth for several years. No wonder the stories got jumbled up!